Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Dr. Lawson Akpulonu is the abortionist who was raping his patients while Diane Sawyer was telling Mark Crutcher that Akpulonu was "a non-story."

Sherri Finkbine was the Romper Room lady who became a leftist media darling by making a media circus out of her trip to Sweden to get her fetus snuffed. She'd taken Thalidomide (illegally) while she was pregnant, and decided that a baby with a possible limb deformity wasn't welcome in the Finkbine family. To have a cute, perky, bubbly mom doggedly pursuing abortion was fantastic PR for the abortion lobby.

On March 16, 1869, Magdalena Philippi died of complications of an abortion performed on her, evidently by a Dr. Gabriel Wolff. Although Magdalena was four or five months pregnant, prosecutors had no way of proving that she had felt movement in the fetus, so they could not prosecute Dr. Wolff. The next day, a bill was introduced in Albany to eliminate the quickening distinction in prosecuting abortion cases. This would make it easier to prosecute abortionists like Wolff.

Rosario Bermeo, age 30, died following abortion by Dr. Joseph B. Shapse at Prospect Hospital in New York June 14, 1983. Shapse contended he had no responsibility for actions of the certified nurse anesthetist, and no responsibility to monitor and evaluate Rosario's condition during and immediately after the abortion. Therefore, he said, he was not to blame for her death from respiratory and cardiac arrest.

A suit by Vivian S. alleged that she underwent an abortion by Gerald Zupnick at Bill Baird Center on November 5, 1983. She faulted Zupnick with failure to evaluate her symptoms. Vivian suffered a perforated uterus, incomplete abortion, and bleeding. She asserted that Zupnick was unqualified to perform her abortion, that he abandoned her, failed to hospitalize her when her condition required hospital care. Vivian had to undergo corrective surgery under general anesthesia, and was hospitalized December 7-9. She also required multiple transfusions, and was left with impaired fertility. She also sued for lost earnings. (Nassau County Supreme Court Index No. 1281-84)

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A suit by Merline G., age 27, alleged that she sought counseling at Bill Baird Center on May 28, 1983. Center staff arranged for abortion of Merline's 6-week pregnancy that day by Zupnick. Merline later learned that the staff "induced plaintiff to submit herself to the procedures by material misrepresentations." Merline had "instant, intense pain" during the procedure, and informed Zupnick. Her suit said "it was clearly observable to defendants, and to the nurse in attendance, that something was obviously wrong with the procedure... defendants continued in the same erroneous manner, not even alleviating plaintiff's pain with any anesthesia; for hours thereafter insisted on plaintiff remaining on the premises, unattended to, in pain, followed by a repetition of the identical misapplication." Merlene faulted Zupnick with "failure to administer even so much as a local anesthetic," and noted that he detained her "without care or treatment for her condition."

Merline asserted that Zupnick and Bill Baird Center staff kept Merline isolated from the friend who had accompanied her, and interfered with their communications. Merline, "in order to leave the premises to receive proper medical care was required to slip out of the premises unobserved." The suit asserted that their treatment of Merline "not only constitute malpractice, but violate the lowest standard of care applicable to a volunteer layman, who would purport to assume responsibility in an emergency."

Merline was hospitalized two weeks, where she passed products of conception, and treated for pelvic infection. She also required blood transfusions. Zupnick contended he did not perform a second procedure, only an exam, and that he referred Merline to hospital.

Merline's attorney investigated Zupnick and the Bill Baird Center and noted that "80% of Zupnick's practice was Baird referrals, 90% of it abortions." Abortion patients would come to the Baird Center, where they would complete a history for Zupnick, and execute an informed consent for Zupnick in form and content prepared by Zupnick; to be instructed in the abortion procedure by counselors trained by Zupnick. Patients would pay $165: $85 to Baird and $80 to Zupnick, with Baird collecting Zupnick's fee for him. Patients were then walked next door to be aborted by Zupnick. (Queens County Supreme Court Index No. 41067/84)

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A suit by Beverly S., age 21, alleged: that she submitted to an abortion of her 3-month pregnancy on February 12, 1978. The abortion was performed at Bill Baird Center by Zupnick. Beverly suffered a perforated uterus, pain, and excessive bleeding. Beverly was transported to a hospital, where she arrived at the emergency room with no blood pressure to to hemorrhage. She had to have a hysterectomy. Beverly faulted Zupnick with failure to take an adequate medical history, failure to perform a complete physical exam, failure to detect beverly's deteriorating condition, failure to advise Beverly to undergo further evaluation and care, failure to keep abreast of medical knowledge, failure to inform Beverly of risks and alternatives, and failure to monitor Beverly's vitals appropriately. (New York County Supreme Court Case No. 21580)

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Zupnick's Florida license is inactive, having expired January 1, 2006.

Fifteen-year-old Gwendolyn Drummer was a student at Harry Ellis High in Richmond, California, when she was admitted to Doctor's Hospital of Pinole for a legal abortion. On January 28, 1972, a strong salt solution was injected into Gwendolyn's uterus to kill her fetus. The salt solution got into Gwendolyn's blood stream, damaging her organs. She developed pneumonia, and died on January 31, 1972.

Just listening to Rich Mullins. I heartily recommend him to one and all; even nonbelievers often find they like his music, especially fans of hammered dulcimer.

Right now I'm listening to Somewhere:

Somewhere between the lost and the foundWe're all hanging empty, empty and upside-downBut I'm hanging on, though the fall may tempt meAnd I believe in the dawn, though I tremble in the nightSomewhere amidst these ins and these outsThere's a fine line of purpose I follow even nowThrough the haze of despair that confuses and hurts usI look to see that You're there, and I run toward Your lightSomewhere, beyond these reasons and feelingsSomwehere, beyond the passion and fatigueI know You're thereAnd that Your Spirit is leading me somewhere beyond all this

I wanted to do a montage at OneTrueMedia to share at least a snippet, but alas for some reason my computer stores files in an incompatible format. Grrrr! Though you can hear "The Color Green" here, "My Deliverer" (written by Mullins, performed by his Ragamuffin Band after he died) here, and "Calling Out Your Name (with awesome hammered dulcimer) here.

Though it takes the attitude that abortion is a hunky-dory thing for a teen to be subjected to, at least Mom, Dad, I'm Pregnant encourages teens to tell their parents about pregnancy rather than slip off for a clandestine abortion at some seedy, fly-by-night abortion mill.

“I’m pregnant,” probably seems like the hardest conversation you will ever have. Most young people fear their parents’ reactions and may try to keep the pregnancy a secret. Bad idea. If you are pregnant, you probably need your parents’ love, assistance, and maybe even their advice. Also, keeping secrets is not always good for your emotional health and your ability to take care of your health.

The site then gives hints for how to approach the topic. This includes how to approach the topic when Mom and Dad have a history of not taking things well:

If you really feel it would not be safe for you when your parents find out, consider having someone else that you trust there, like an aunt or cousin, or an older brother or sister.

Of course, being a prochoice site the authors feel compelled to tell the girl that there's no risk whatsoever of any sort of PTSD reaction to abortion. But considering that this is one of the few places online that gives kids good advice on how to approach their parents with news of a pregnancy, I have to give them credit where credit is due. They treat girls like girls, and not like miniature women who have all the emotional and social resources of women. And their agenda is also revealed in the fact that their resources page has no resources for making an adoption plan or for parenting.

Still, it's a start. It's certainly a site I can recommend linking to -- though prolifers will want to put a caveat with the link that this site is good for advice on telling parents about a pregnancy, and not a good site for making a choice about what to do about the baby.

Thanks to Tlaloc for emailing me the documents from the medical board for this! For some reason I couldn't get my browsers to open them in the right program, and I could view only the first or last page!

On November 23, 1973, Hoke performed an abortion even though the pregnancy test was negative. He failed to notify the patient of the negative pregnancy test.

On November 21, 1973, Hoke performed a pelvic exam on a patient, then told her that she was about six weeks pregnant. He also told her that the results of her blood test and urine test confirmed a six week pregnancy. He then sold her an abortion, even though she was not indeed pregnant.

On November 20, 1973, Hoke performed an abortion on a patient who was at least 12 weeks pregnant, likely more than 18 weeks pregnant. He sent her home without any contact for follow up instructions or anybody to contact in an emergency. She had to be hospitalized for complications.

On June 28, 1973, Hoke performed surgery on a patient at Sam Howell Memorial Hospital, "which involved and required surgical opening of her abdomen and other internal surgery," even though he knew she was not properly anesthetized and could feel what was happening to her. After the surgery, he failed to take steps to prevent excessive bleeding, and left the patient without any physician in attendance. They faulted him for abandoning this patient.

In May of 1972, Hoke performed surgery on a patient at Charlotte Memorial Hospital, "ostensibly for the repair of a hernia," even though the woman had no hernia.

The board also faulted Hoke with claiming to the Medical Care Commission, and evidently to his patients, that pathology exams were ordered for all abortion specimens. It turns out that he did not after all have pathology examinations done, which is both fraudulent and medically reckless, since a pathology exam is necessary to ensure that the woman doesn't have retained tissue, which can cause a potentially fatal infection.

The board noted that Hoke made false claims in the brochure he produced to solicit patients for his Hallmark Clinic and Counselling Service. For example, Hoke claimed in the pamphlet, "The Hallmark Clinic is staffed by either Board certified or Board qualified gynecologists who are on the staffs of all three hospitals in Charlotte, N.C.", even though this was not true. The pamphlet also falsely promised that all patients would have a number of tests performed prior to their procedures. The Board in particular noted that Hoke sold many women abortions without performing pregnancy tests.

The Board noted that Hoke retaliated against a person who participated in proceedings that had gotten him suspended from the staff of a hospital, by falsely accusing him or her of theft.

The Board noted that on November 29, 1973, Hoke filed a false report with the police, claiming that somebody was trying to extort money from him in exchange for keeping quiet about his wrongdoing at his clinic. He suborned false testimony from two of his employees to support his false charge.

The Board noted that in February or March of 1972, Hoke had tried to get somebody to falsely accuse somebody of making obscene phone calls.

According to the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League, before Jane Roe fought for her reproductive rights in 1973, abortion was illegal in all but four states and abortions in those states were given only in dire situations.

Abortion was legal on-demand in New York and California clear back to 1970.

Each year, an estimated 5,000 women would die of botched abortions.

Will somebody please put a stake in that thing's heart? Can these people get a freaking clue?!?!?!?!

You know what it reminds me of? I once worked in a tiny, cramped little office. One of my co-workers was loudly and vehemently informing somebody that abortion was illegal after 12 weeks. I didn't say a word. I just picked up the phone book, turned it to the Yellow Pages, and pointed to the two ads for the city's two abortion clinics, both of which advertised abortions to 24 weeks. The woman in question just made a disgusted noise and said, "Oh, OKAY!"

About a week later, she was again vehemently and loudly informing somebody that abortion was illegal after 12 weeks.

Are these people on drugs? Have they been lobotomized? What's the deal?

Monday, January 29, 2007

Hoke got in trouble for the medical board for several cases. I can't get any of my web browsers to read the entire document -- if anybody is, please email me the pages! At any rate, the first page says that on December 7, 1973, Hoke performed an abortion on a pregnancy past 12 weeks by injecting a solution into the woman's uterus, then telling her to go to a motel room to expel the fetus, unattended by any medical personnel. On December 2, 1973, Hoke performed an abortion on a woman even after her pregnancy test had come back negative. He did the same thing again on a date I can't determine from the documents, to another patient.

In another medical board document I can only access the first page of, the board notes that on April 3, 1973, Hoke undertook a tubal ligation on a patient. He only ligated one tube, but somehow failed to ligate the other tube. He then for some reason not medically indicated checked that same woman back into the hospital and performed a hysterectomy on her in order to conceal the fact that he'd only tied one of her tubes. He then falsified hospital records to cover this up. As a reflection, I guess, on Hoke's character, the board noted that on July 28, 1973, hoke stole a can of deodorant from a drug store.

Hoke was also responsible for an unintended late abortion "Jean" and her husband visited Hallmark Clinic when they suspected that she was pregnant. A clinic pamphlet indicated that Hallmark used "the most modern, and by far the safest" abortion technique, and that abortions past 12 weeks gestation would be performed by Hallmark's Board Certified or Board Eligible doctors at a local hospital, as required by law, rather than in the clinic. Reassured by the pamphlet, Jean returned for an abortion on November 20, 1973. Because the abortion was being done in the clinic rather than the hospital, Jean believed that her pregnancy was in the first trimester. Harold Hoke performed a suction abortion, then discharged Jean without a post-abortion examination. Jean suffered "excruciating pain and bleeding" at home. At 5AM on November 22, Jean's mother-in-law rushed her to the emergency room, where she expelled a severely mutilated 19-week female fetus. Jean was hospitalized, returned home on bed rest, and was unable to work. (Lincoln County Superior Court Case No. 74CVS247)

Harold Hoke was investigated for dumping fetuses and medical waste at Colwick Towers dumpster summer of 1992. Hoke claimed that his Hallmark Clinic sent such material out through a disposal firm, but the firm's records showed no materials received from Hoke for 2 months. "On August 12 and August 22, a Charlotte Observer reporter saw a considerable amount of fetal tissue removed from the dumpster adjacent to the clinic. The remains, deposited in 10 to 15 large plastic trash bags, included readily identifiable body parts. Among them were a left forearm and hand, a left leg and foot, a right forearm and hand, part of a right foot, and a spinal column and rib cage. In several cases the remains had been dumped in trash bags along with ordinary garbage: coffee grounds, cigarette butts and remnants of chicken dinners." Hoke was quoted as responding, "I don't care what you saw. If you saw a little green monster there, somebody else put it there." Such dumping would be in violation of state law requiring certain packaging and incineration of such materials. (Charlotte Observer 9-2-92)

Here is another case case, that involved a 14-year-old girl Hoke injured in 1983. Again, Hoke tried to weasel out of the suit by claiming that hey, she'd signed an arbitration agreement.

Faye W alleged that in March of 1972, Hoke informed her that lab work from a prior routine pelvic exam revealed that she had cancer; he recommended surgery as soon as Faye could enter the hospital. "Shortly afterward" Hoke told Faye he would be away for several weeks and would contact her when he returned to his office. Faye returned for an office visit in April, and asked about the nature and location of the cancer. Hoke denied that he had diagnosed cancer. On May 1 Faye returned, and Hoke arranged for her to enter the hospital on May 23 for a hysterectomy to treat the cancer. Hoke never explained to Faye "the seriousness or location of the cancer." During the hysterectomy Hoke cut one ureter and sutured both of them shut inadvertently; it was immediately apparent that Faye's ureters had been blocked because of cessation of urine output. Hoke would not examine Faye although she and her husband insisted that he should diagnose the cause of her symptoms. Finally, after over a day, Hoke sought a consult with a urologist at the insistence of Faye's husband. Faye required surgery to repair her ureters. (Mecklenburg County Superior Court Case No. 73CVS3081)

Hoke's medical license is currently inactive. He was born in 1926, which makes him over 80 years old. Prayers for his immortal soul would not be amiss. This guy will be meeting his Maker soon and he's not been a good boy.

Or rather they wanted information about Steve Lichtenberg. I can't imagine him being wanted other than in the picture-in-the-post-office sense.

Steve Lichtenberg is the abortionist responsible for the death of 13-year-old Deanna Bell. His was the signature on the thank-you-note sent to the referring hospital, telling them "Date of service 9-5-92, Uneventful D&C, Thank you!"

At a National Abortion Federation Risk Management Seminar, Lichtenberg spent a lot of the discussion period bragging up the high-risk abortions he did in an outpatient setting, and the life-threatening complications he treated in the procedure room rather than transporting the patients to fully-equipped hospitals. The moderator, Michael Burnhill, then Medical Director of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, chewed him out, told him he was "playing Russian roulette" with patient's lives. Lichtenberg blew him off.

This exchange took place before Deanna's needless death. If only Lichtenberg had heeded Burnhill, Deanna Bell might have graduated high school, gone to her prom, maybe married, maybe had living children. She'd be 28 years old now. If Lichtenberg had listened to Michael Burnhill and stopped treating his abortion patients as if they were just a video game.

Gallup Poll Conducted 5/2-4/04; surveyed 1,000 adults: "Regardless of whether or not you think each of these issues should be legal, do you personally believe that in general it is morally acceptable or morally wrong?" Abortion is morally acceptable: 40%. Abortion is morally wrong: 50%

This may sound like a pretty even split, but then we can start looking more closely.

Wirthlin Worldwide November 2004 post-election poll. This one came down 40% prochoice, 55% prolife. But what's particularly telling is how the prochoice split. 25% of people surveyed -- 62% of prochoicers -- said they wanted abortion to be legal for any reason only for the first three months of pregnancy. That's not a ringing endorsement of Roe, or of the status quo, which allows abortion for any reason for the first six months and pretty much if the woman is able to find a willing doctor in the third trimester.

It's not easy to hide the body when you kill somebody during the commission of a crime, as many a criminal has discovered. This was true when the crime was an illegal abortion. Those who scoff at the idea that the authorities could uncover even a fraction of criminal abortion deaths should reflect on cases such as the death of Rose Lipner, a 32-year-old mother of two.

Rose died at Riverdale (maternity) Hospital on January 29, 1936. Dr. Maxwell C. Katz, who both operated and lived at Riverdale, signed a death certificate indicating that Rose had died of complications of surgery he'd performed to treat a tumor.

After the funeral, an anonymous caller notified the police that Rose's death was suspicious. Based on this anonymous call, the authorities had Rose's body exhumed, and an autopsy was performed.

The medical examiner discovered that Rose had died not from surgery for a tumor, but from an illegal abortion.

Katz was arraigned for second-degree manslaughter in Rose's death.

This dynamic is so important it bears repeating:

Performing an elective abortion was a crime.

Failing to report a death from an elective abortion was a crime.

Killing somebody during the commission of a crime wasn't something the cops just brushed off.

An anonymous call was enough to have a woman's body exhumed for autopsy to discern if she had, in fact, been killed during the commission of a crime.

Now that abortion is a "right" rather than a crime, a woman's death is no longer a criminal matter. There is nobody -- not the medical board, not hospital accreditation boards, not maternal mortality committees, not the police -- that will go prying about based on a report that a woman's death was actually due to an abortion. Abortion deaths are purely a civil matter. And even if the family sues, the case gets publicity, and the death is openly known to be an abortion death, the Centers for Disease Control no longer have any interest in counting it. (See the case of Latachie Veal).

Roe vs. Wade decreased the chances that a woman's abortion death will be noticed, investigated, and counted, by making it a private matter the authorities have no cause to involve themselves with. And until we fully grasp this fact, our thinking about abortion mortality statistics will be based on false premises.

Olive Ash worked for a farmer, Mr. Beckwith, in Vermont, in the summer and fall of 1857. She was about 20 years old, and she lived with the family during her employment. In the autumn of that year, Olive returned to her family home in Sutton.

On December 28, 1857, Olive and her twin sister, Olivia, left their home and went by rail to the home of their cousin, Levi M. Aldrich, in Bradford, ostensibly to visit his widowed mother. During the visit, Olive seemed to her family to be in normal health.

The sisters remained at Aldrich's home about two weeks, then said that they were going to meet some friends at the Fairlee depot for an excursion into New York or Massachusetts. Instead, when they arrived at Fairlee depot they took a wagon to the home and office of Dr. William Howard, about six miles north of the depot and three miles south of Bradford.

On Friday, January 29, 1858, Olive's mother got a telegram telling her to come to Howard's home. She quickly complied, and was there when her daughter died at about 6 in the evening. Dr. Howard got a coffin for Olive, and the twins' mother took her daughter's body by train to Sutton.

On February 3, Olive's body was exhumed for an autopsy, which was performed by Dr. Frost and witnessed by Dr. Bliss, Dr. Carpenter, and others unnamed. Frost found evidence of recent pregnancy as well as signs of instrumentation and damage to the cervix. Dr. Frost believed that Olive had hemorrhaged due to the damage to her cervix. He removed and preserved her uterus. Another physician examined the uterus and concluded that the placenta had been retained for some time after the abortion, and that this retained placenta would also cause hemorrhage.

In the trial of Dr. Howard, Olivia testified that she knew her sister was pregnant and had accompanied her on the journey knowing that Olive was planning to get an abortion. Olivia said that Daniel Beckwith, the grown son of the farmer Olive had worked for, met them at their cousin's house, and he gave them the information on where to go and who to see for the abortion.

From Olivia's testimony, the sisters arrived at Dr. Howard's house and informed him that Olive was about six months pregnant. He spoke to the sisters and indicated that he wanted to consult with Daniel Beckwith before deciding if he was going to proceed with an abortion. The sisters remained at Dr. Howard's house for a few days until Olive got a letter from Beckwith, and she read part of it to Dr. Howard. He then agreed to perform the abortion for a sum of $100.

Dr. Howard told the sisters that the process would take three or four weeks. He gave Olive a concoction to drink two or three times. On the Friday the week after the sisters' arrival, Dr. Howard performed some sort of procedure on Olive as she lay on the bed in the room the twins shared. Olivia was permitted to remain with her sister during this procedure. She said that Dr. Howard used two or three of the three or four instruments he had at hand. Olive was in pain during the procedure, which took two or more hours, and resulted in a gush of fluid.

The following day, Dr. Howard performed another, similar, procedure on Olive, who clutched her sister's hand and reported great pain. Olive bled profusely. After this second operation, Olive kept to her bed.

That night, Dr. Howard performed yet another procedure, very painful for Olive to endure. This time he used instruments then reached in with his hand and pulled out a fetus, which Olivia reported as being about two-thirds the size of a newborn. Dr. Howard removed the fetus from the room, and Olivia never saw it again.

Olive bled after this, but not profusely. Afterward her behavior struck Olivia as violent and irrational. A girl named Margaret Kelley, who lived at Dr. Howard's house, also testified that Olivia had laundered her sister's bloody clothing while at the doctor's house. Bloody clothing were introduced into evidence, including two chemises and a small quilt or pad. The witness, Mrs. Wilson, who produced the evidence indicated that she'd found these things hidden in the rafters of the house when she was cleaning in the fall of 1858.

Mrs. Wilson also said that about two weeks after Dr. Howard's arrest, she saw one of Dr. Howard's dogs come out from underneath the office privvy with something in its mouth. She made the dog drop what it was carrying and discovered it to be a fetus of about four or five months, in a state of decomposition. While she was looking at the fetus, another of the doctor's dogs snatched the fetus up and ran off with it. The dogs, she testified, had been digging at the privvy for some time before retrieving the fetus. Mrs. Wilson's description of the fetus she'd seen the dogs with was similar in size to the fetus Olivia had described taken from her sister. Olivia had also testified to having seen a number of fetuses of various sizes preserved in containers in Dr. Howard's premises.

The defense presented a witness named Susan Squires, who was staying at Dr. Howards from January 23 until after Olive's death. She said that the Thursday before Olive's death, she had spoken with Olive while Olivia was eating lunch. Susan said that Olive told her that she didn't expect to live, that she'd taken poisons before coming to Dr. Howard, that Dr. Howard was not to blame in her death but had done everything in his power to help her. Susan said that Olive seemed rational at the time, but that by Friday morning Olive seemed to have lost her reason.

On cross examination, Susan indicated that she had stayed at Dr. Howard's off and on for two years, to do sewing and to receive medications. She indicated that on Thursday afternoon, at about 4:00 Friday morning Olive managed to kick the footboard off the bed, prompting Olivia to summon Susan and a Mrs. Green into the room. Olive complained of being tired and continued to thrash and kick for a short time before settling down.

Mrs. Green was brought as a witness. She said that she had gone to Dr. Howard's on Tuesday afternoon and remained there a week visiting the doctor's wife. She first saw Olive on Wednesday morning, when Olivia had summoned her to help attend to Olive, who was trembling, delierious, and bleeding from the nose. Mrs. Green also went to Olive during the episode when she'd kicked the footboard off the bed. She'd helped the others restrain Olive. Mrs. Green testified that Olive never revived enough to speak after that.

Dr. Howard's witnessed attempted to show that Howard was treating Olive for a miscarriage. Dr. Howard was nevertheless convicted.

Geraldine Santoro -- This is the woman whose photo abortion advocates circulate as proof that abortion ought to be legal, so that women terrorized by abusive ex-husbands can get their fetuses killed. Evidently women with abusive ex-husbands aren't entitled to any form of help except abortion.

dr. ester pimentel - She was one of the doctors that stood around stupidly and watched Diane Watson die.

She's coming up on the tenth anniversary of the day she capitulated to despair, the day she acted on the knowledge that she had been abandoned by doctors she'd trusted, medical professionals she should have been able to trust; the day the HG and severe dehydration robbed her of her will, of her ability to think clearly, and, eventually, of her child.

For those of you who think that aborting for "maternal indications" is something you just do and get over, remember Ashli. The ninth anniversary. The eighth. The seventh. She hadn't blogged an anniversary before the seventh. But she did blog just after the sixth anniversary.

She was abandoned. By society. By the medical establishment. By the pro-choice movement. And even by the pro-lifers, who seem ready to concede that an ailing mom can just be scraped out and sent home. We failed to let women like Ashli know that we'd be there for them.

Eventually I start a blog. I talk about my child, my loss. I expose the royal scam. A few people even care.

Days go by. Months go by. Anniversaries come and go. When they arrive again I try not to think of it, but I can't not.

Curiously, I focus on the moment when the cruel lance first touched the amniotic sac. That split milisecond just before the end of all things. That shallow short breath that divides the space between life and death, happiness and horror. I see a delicate, precious orb and a sharp threatening instrument puncturing it. It's too late now.

Liquid spills out onto the pad. Diamonds flow into an oversized sanitary napkin. Diamonds... and rubies.

There is no turning back. This is the rest of my life. This is what one human life will buy.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEContact: David Tolleson770/604-9500 January 23, 2007

ATLANTA – The National Down Syndrome Congress (NDSC) condemns recent recommendations by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) that convey tacit approval for terminating pregnancies where the fetus has Down syndrome.

The recommendation for first trimester screening of all pregnant women is a change from the current practice of primarily screening women over age 35 who have a higher probability of having a baby with Down syndrome. Women under age 35 are also being screened, often without their full knowledge or consent.

Among the concerns cited by the medical doctors comprising NDSC’s Professional Advisory Committee:

The primary medical reason for first trimester screening is to encourage earlier diagnostic testing in “at risk” pregnancies, in order to facilitate early terminations. Other reasons for prenatal diagnosis, such as hospital selection and delivery management, do not require first trimester testing.

Based on ACOG’s figures, the recommended screenings will produce numerous false positives, potentially leading to unnecessary patient distress and possible termination of pregnancies where medical concerns do not exist.

All screening or diagnostic tests need to be fully explained to patients, who should be provided the opportunity to decline or give their informed consent for testing. If patients decline certain tests, physicians and other medical personnel should respect the individual’s wishes and not overtly or covertly pressure patients to undergo undesired screenings.

Recent studies by Dr. Brian Skotko, published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology (2005) and Pediatrics (2005) note that many doctors are inadequately prepared to deliver a diagnosis of Down syndrome, and often use negative language or out-of-date information. ACOG’s recommendations do not address this situation, nor how it will be corrected.

Studies have shown that parents and siblings of children with Down syndrome overwhelmingly report that having a family member with that diagnosis has been a good situation. Early intervention and inclusive education have led to largely positive outcomes for children with Down syndrome. It is unacceptable that many obstetricians present negatives -- and seem to emphasize pregnancy termination -- rather than reporting the facts, which paint a much more positive picture.

Parents who receive a diagnosis that their fetus has Down syndrome should have the opportunity to meet a family that includes a person with the syndrome, a move in keeping with the spirit of the Kennedy-Brownback bill.

NDSC Executive Director David Tolleson notes that “Down syndrome is a serious diagnosis; however we have seen families thrive.” “We empathize with obstetricians who fear ‘wrongful life’ lawsuits,” Tolleson adds, “but the cure for that problem is tort reform, not preventing the births of a whole class of people.”

Jeff Mattson, a man with Down syndrome, agrees: “People with Down syndrome want to live life to the fullest.”

According to Tolleson, “the NDSC is here to support doctors in delivering a diagnosis and parents through the pregnancy, birth and life of their child.”

Pathfinder Village -- a place where folks with DS can get the support and acceptance they need to live productive lives. Though I'm not keen on the idea of segregation, I think folks with DS need to have the option of living someplace where they're not constantly having to justifiy their existence to prejudiced people who want to know why they weren't aborted. And yes, this is one of the things that families complain about: total strangers asking, "Didn't you know? Couldn't you have -- you know -- done something?"

Along Came Noah -- "My ob (who I don’t go to anymore) called me several times to “remind” me how long I had left to terminate." -- "Terminate" that adorable little boy!

An Unexpected Journey -- "I would learn quickly the people I should surround myself with. In some people I could see fear in their eyes when Alex would play with their children. Like DS was contagious. I realized it was ignorance, but I wasn’t going to waste my focus on educating them. I would rather spend my time with those that weren’t afraid to ask the questions."

A Glimpse of a Hopeful Future -- Even though Nancy had made it plain that she had no intention of aborting, every medical professional felt compelled to make sure she knew she still had time to "terminate"!

The Gift of Maria -- "In my fourth month of pregnancy, my baby was diagnosed with Down syndrome through amniocentesis after a suspicious-looking ultrasound. This news devastated me and sent me into a depression. I felt trapped, even worse than after losing my other baby. Instead of being able to 'try again,' I felt that this diagnosis of a permanently disabled baby was a life sentence for me and that I had ruined my perfect little family by selfishly wanting another child. Several people encouraged me to abort my child, and one even offered to take me horseback riding to 'get rid of the problem.'"

The Girl of my Dreams -- "Madison is the center of our world. She has a laugh that is music to your ears and a smile that will melt your heart."

Unconditional Love -- Kimberly faced two staggering diagnoses -- she had cervical cancer, and her baby had Down Syndrome.

The thing that leaps out at me is the stark, raw terror these families face, for no good reason! It's so wrong to create an atmosphere of fear and horror, based on out-of-date information and flat-out lies, just because some people are so prejudiced against people with Down Syndrome that they don't want them to be born.

Evangeline McKenna was 38 years old when she checked into Cedars of Lebanon Hospital in Los Angeles for an abortion and tubal ligation.

Two days after the procedure, she had a seizure. She stopped breathing and went into cardiac arrest. Doctors told the family that Evanegline was brain dead, but they held out hope and asked that she be put on life support.

On January 28, 1974, after twelve days on life support, Evangeline was pronounced dead.

Now, why is it that any time people gather against the war it's front-page news, but when hundreds of thousands of people, in literally scores of locations nationwide, gathered to protest abortion, euthanasia, and infanticide, we were virtually ignored?

Might it be because the MSM is opposed to the war, but they favor abortion, euthanasia, and infanticide?

Ada was 36 years old when she went to Nehorayoff's office in Manhattan, "known as Manhattan Women's Medical Offices," on June 23, 1990, to have a D&E to remove a fetus that had died of natural causes. Nehorayoff "failed to perform and/or record the findings of an adequate medical history and physical examination." He did not order proper tests, and did not use laminaria to dilate Ada's cervix. He inadequately dilated Ada's cervix, then had her given Anaprox and oral fluids, which was inappropriate given Ada's condition. Ada was in the recovery room from noon to 5:25 p.m. "During this period the Patient was weak, unresponsive and had a falling blood pressure. Respondent should have transferred the Patient to a hospital by 2 p.m. Instead, he waited until 5:25 p.m. when the patient was cyanotic with a blood pressure of 80/0."

At 5:25, Nehorayoff "inappropriately decided" to transfer Ada to a hospital two hours away. Ada's husband insisted that an ambulance be called to transfer Ada to a nearby hospital. Because Nehorayoff had no back-up arrangements with any local hospital, a nurse called 911, and Ada was taken to Beth Israel Medical Center.

Upon admission, Ada's hemoglobin was 7.8 and her hematocrit 23.4. her blood pressure was 80/0, and her pulse a racing 126. She was in shock. Emergency surgery found two lacerations in Ada's uterus. The bleeding could not be controlled. Surgeons at Beth Israel had to perform an emergency hysterectomy to save Ada's life.

Regarding Patient B, who I'll call "Brandy":

Brandy was 18 years old when she went to Nehorayoff's office on November 22, 1989, for a second trimester abortion. Nehorayoff "failed to perform and/or record the findings of an adequate medical history and physical examination." He didn't use laminaria and inadequately dilated her cervix. During the abortion, Nehorayoff pulled a loop of Brandy's bowel through her cervix through a 2.5 cm tear he'd made in the back of her uterus.

Instead of stopping the procedure and transferring Brandy to a hospital, Nehorayoff just continued with the abortion. Only after the abortion did he hospitalize Brandy. Surgeons there found "a 6.5 segment of devascularized bowel" which they had to remove. They also had to remove fetal parts Nehorayoff had left in Brandy's uterus.

Regarding Patient C, who I'll call "Camille":

Camille was 22 years old when Nehorayoff performed a first-trimester abortion on her in his office on September 20, 1988. Camille returned on September 28, reporting lower abdominal pain. Nehorayoff didn't order a sonogram, perform a pregnancy test, or review Camille's pathology report. "It was not until on or about October 18, 1988, that Respondent ordered a sonogram and diagnosed an ectopic pregnancy." This delay in diagnosis could have resulted in Camille's death.

Regarding Patient D, who I'll call "Demitria":

Demitria was 27 years old when she went to Nehorayoff's office on October 18, 1988, for a second-trimester abortion. Like with his other second trimester patients, Nehorayoff failed to record an adequate history and physical, failed to use laminaria, and inadequately dilated Demitria's cervix.

Despite Demitria's low hematocrit of only 26%, Nehorayoff performed the abortion on an outpatient basis. Evidently this abortion was either incomplete or unsuccessful, because Nehorayoff performed a second D&E on Demitria on October 22. He failed to perform a hematocrit prior to this second surgery. He did not record any pre-operative or post-operative diagnosis, and did not order a pathology exam for the tissues removed. The board concluded that this second D&E procedure was therefore not medically indicated.

On January 24, 1987, 37-year-old Belinda Byrd had an abortion performed by Stephen Pine at Inglewood Women's Hospital in Los Angeles, California. Belinda was left unattended for three hours after the abortion, and was found unresponsive. Staff at Inglewood delayed an additional two hours before transferring her to a hospital with appropriate emergency services.

Belinda was one of 74 women who ad abortions in Inglewood's single operating room that day, and one of 24 whose abortions were performed in the final two hours of the day. Belinda remained comatose until her death on January 27.

Belinda's mother wrote to a Los Angeles district attorney:

I am the mother of Belinda Byrd, victim of abortionists at [Inglewood]. I am also the grandmother of her three young children who are left behind and motherless. I cry every day when I think how horrible her death was. She was slashed by them and then she bled to death ... and nobody cares. I know that other young black women are now dead after abortion at that address. ... Where is [the abortionist] now? Has he been stopped? Has anything happened to him because of what he did to my Belinda? Has he served jail time for any of these cruel deaths? People tell me nothing has happened, that nothing ever happens to white abortionists who leave young black women dead. I'm hurting real bad and want some justice for Belinda and all other women who go like sheep to slaughter.

In the wake of the series of abortion deaths at Inglewood, the authorities inspected the place. Among other things, they caught an abortionist writing post-operative examination notes without even examining the patients. When the state closed Inglewood for numerous violations, the facility simply re-opened as Inglewood Women's Clinic; as a clinic rather than a hospital they were no longer subject to the same intense scrutiny and were able to remain in business.

A suit filed by the survivors of Ingar Lee Whittington Weber alleged that she underwent an abortion by Richardson P. Glidden and/or Thomas Booker on January 20, 1990, at Delta Women's Clinic in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Ingar's family said that neither Glidden nor his staff at Delta diagnosed Ingar's kidney problems or the deterioration of her physical condition before, during, or after the abortion. Ingar was hospitalized several days after her abortion for acute kidney failure. She died on January 26, 1990.

Thursday, January 25, 2007

An 18-year-old Dominican immigrant was charged yesterday with illegally taking prescription anti-ulcer pills to induce an abortion, a risky technique common in her native land that resulted in the death of her premature baby.

Despite taking the pills, Amber Abreu gave birth on Jan. 6 to a 1 1/4-pound girl named Ashley, who clung to life for four days at Tufts-New England Medical Center before dying.

Prosecutors said that Abreu may be charged with homicide.

Had this girl just gone to an abortionist, no matter how far advanced her pregnancy, there would be no way she'd face charges. But because she went the amateur route to get her desired dead baby, she's being prosecuted. Would they be prosecuting a doctor who had misdiagnosed a pregnancy as 23 weeks when it was actually 25? This is a botched abortion. Abortion is legal.

Why should it make a bit of difference how she achieves the baby's death, or how long it takes it to die? Why should it make a bit of difference if the baby was 23 weeks or 25 weeks? So, the woman wasn't a doctor. She made a mistake. She misdiagnosed herself.

Don't get me wrong. I think it's terrible that her baby is dead. But selective prosecution of a girl who is evidently ill-educated, ignorant, and poor makes no sense. Had a college-educated man (i.e. a physician) given her those drugs, he'd get a slap on the wrist at most, for having miscalculated gestational age. He'd have only faced a murder charge if he'd have strangled the baby. This girl didn't strangle her baby. She gave the child a name, after all, and evidently did nothing to stop the hospital staff from trying to save her.

Poverty and ignorance are the crimes she's being prosecuted for here.

Until we establish that it's wrong for anybody to kill a baby, it's unfair and unjust to only prosecute the poor and uneducated.

Kris Hamel, founding member and organizer of DANFORR, Detroit Action Network For Reproductive Rights, is among those that see the Supreme Court decision a different way. .... Before the ruling in 1973, "an estimated 5,000 to 10,000 women died each year in the United State as a result of a million unsafe, illegal abortions," Hamel said.

Leaving us with the question: Is Ms. Hamel misinformed or is she lying? The "5,000 to 10,000 deaths" claim has been so totally debunked for decades now. It was repudiated by the very man who generated the numbers. But, as Bernard Nathanson said, it's a useful number, so despite the fact that it's a load of dingo's kidneys, it gets bandied about anyway.

Where did they come from? Here's an interesting exercise: when you see the 5,000 - 10,000 claim, check and see who they cite (if they bother to cite any source at all). Odds are it will be Lawrence "Larry" Lader or some other late 1960's early 1970's abortion guru. This gives the impression that Lader (or whoever) looked at whatever the then-current situation was and wrote up his findings. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The 5,000 - 10,000 claim is one of the standard abortion promotion tricks: misleading citing. Often you'll see abortion advocates citing some recent (or relatively recent) "research." But when you check their source, you'll find that the source cites an even older source. And when you check that source, you'll find that it cites yet another, older source. You'll go round and round. (I've often joked that tracking down pro-choice original source material gives me motion sickness.) Eventually, you'll find the original source. If you're lucky.

In the case of the 5,000 - 10,000 claims, the original source was a book -- Abortion, Spontaneous and Induced -- published in 1936 by Dr. Frederick Taussig, a leading proponent of legalization of abortion. Taussig calculated an urban abortion rate based on records of a New York City birth control clinic, and a rural abortion rate based on some numbers given to him by some doctors in Iowa. He took a guess at a mortality rate, multiplied by his strangely generated estimate of how many criminal abortions were taking place, and presto! A myth is born!

Even if Taussig's calculations, by some mathematical miracle, had been correct, they still would have been out of date by the end of WWII. Antibiotics and blood transfusions changed the face of medicine. And you will notice that abortion proponents are all too aware of how dated Taussig's numbers are -- why else would they play Musical Cites instead of simply citing Taussig in the first place? But not only are the Taussig numbers dated, they were never accurate to begin with. At a conference in 1942, Taussig himself appologized for using "the wildest estimates" to generate a bogus number.

Although it took Taussig six years to reject his own faulty calculations, at least he did admit that he'd been wrong. Other abortion enthusiasts lacked Taussig's compunctions. Bernard Nathanson, co-founder of NARAL, admitted that he and his associates knew that the claims of 5,000 to 10,000 criminal abortion deaths were false. They bandied them about anyway, Nathanson confessed, because they were useful. This, too, is old news -- Nathanson came clean over twenty years ago.

How many criminal abortion deaths were there, then? An excellent question, and a tricky one to answer. Before the Centers for Disease Control began Abortion Surveillance Activities in 1968, and began looking at abortion mortality in earnest in 1972, all abortion deaths were typically counted together: legal (or "therapeutic"), illegal, and spontaneous (miscarriage). However, even without the CDC's intervention, public health officials were watching maternal mortality in general, and abortion mortality in particular, very carefully. After all, abortion itself was a crime, and an abortion in which the mother died could well result in a homicide investigation. This was not petty crime; the police, coroners, funeral directors, and hospital administrators were very attentive to possible criminal abortion deaths.

But what can that tell us about mortality nationwide? In 1975 (the first year for which complete numbers are available), Minnesota reported roughly 1.6% of all legal abortions, Tennessee reported about 1.7%, and California about 22%. It is reasonable to assume that the proportion of illegal abortions in each state before legalization would be similar to the proportion of legal abortions in each state after Roe. If each of those states had been representative of the nation at large, that would put the national death rate at 78, 225, and 104, respectively. If we combine the totals, we find 31.7 criminal abortion deaths per year in three states, which represented roughly 26% of abortion deaths. This would mean approximately 123 criminal abortion deaths annually in the decades just before Roe.

Are these numbers realistic at all? Mary Calderone, who was then Medical Director of Planned Parenthood, reported on a conference studying abortion in America. She indicated that in 1957, there were 260 abortion deaths nationwide. That number included all abortions: legal, illegal, and spontaneous. The calculations based on state maternal mortality investigations are fairly close to Calderone's numbers based on national data. These numbers were based on alerting doctors, law enforcement, coroners, and hospital administrators, along with public records officials, of their responsibility to report these deaths. Taussig's estimates of 5,000 to 10,000 deaths would have meant that Minnesota authorities should have found 80 to 160 deaths per year when all their efforts could only find one or two. Tennessee should have been finding 85 to 170, rather than 4 or 5. And California should have been finding 1100 to 2200, rather than roughly 26.

Once more, with feeling:

In 1936, Frederick Taussig announced that there were 5,000 to 10,000 maternal deaths from criminal abortion annually in the United States.

In 1942, Taussig admitted that his calculations had been wrong, and that there was no way as many as 5,000 women were dying, much less 10,000.

From 1940 through 1970, abortion mortality fell from nearly 1,500 to a little over 100.

In 1972, according to the Centers for Disease Control, 39 women died from criminal abortions.

Are we supposed to believe that public health officials in Minnesota, Tennessee, and California, in cooperation with law enforcement, the medical community, coroners, and hospital administrators, were that far off? Are we supposed to believe that among abortion supporters, Planned Parenthood's Medical Director, the AMA, the Alan Guttmacher Institute, and the Centers for Disease Control were all that clueless, when they were searching frantically for deaths they could blame on abortion laws? Are we to believe that only Taussig's numbers -- generated with admittedly faulty calculations over sixty years ago -- are the true measure of the cost of criminal abortion in the United States? This is what abortion promoters would have you believe when they cite Taussig's discredited numbers.

You would have to go back to before WWII to find as many as 1,000 women dying from criminal abortions annually in the United States. By 1967, when the first states started allowing very limited elective abortions, the number had fallen almost 90%, to 110. Criminal abortion deaths clearly were diminishing dramatically without taking the radical step of legalization. Other strategies, such as liberalizing sterilization laws, providing competent counseling to frightened pregnant women to help them overcome their fears about having their babies, and teaching doctors better diagnostic and treatment strategies for addressing criminal abortion complications, were based on sound research and were likely to reduce criminal abortion deaths to an unavoidable minimum. (As long as some women insist on having abortions, some of them will die, no matter how diligently we try to protect them.) When current strategies are working, it's foolish to throw a monkey wrench into the works. The strategy of improved medical care was solving the problem. Abortion advocates might have done well to listen to the old adage, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

Fact No. 3—Abortion is no longer a dangerous procedure. This applies not just to therapeutic abortions as performed in hospitals but also to so-called illegal abortions as done by physicians. .... Two corollary factors must be mentioned here: first, chemotherapy and antibiotics have come in, benefiting all surgical procedures as well as abortion. Second, and even more important, the conference estimated that 90 per cent of all illegal abortions are presently being done by physicians. Call them what you will, abortionists or anything else, they are still physicians, trained as such; and many of them are in good standing in their communities. They must do a pretty good job if the death rate is as low as it is.

Dad was just home following his efforts to save a 16-year-old girl who had developed a raging infection from a "botched abortion." She was a student at the neighboring school so I didn't know her, but he knew her well.

The shame of an unintended pregnancy had forced her to an unskilled abortionist who used dirty instruments on a table in a garage. By the time she came to my father, the infection had spread, and she died under his care. He was despondent and angry for weeks.

With wisdom based on first-hand experience, my conservative parents breathed a sigh of relief at the Roe v. Wade decision back in 1973.

Oh, yeah, Roe fixed everything. Tell that to the family of Carolina Gutierrez. They got to watch her hands and feet go black with gangrene as she fought a futile battle to survive. Why is this 16-year-old's death tragic and unacceptable, but the death of a woman like Carolina just something to shrug off, file under "Shit happens"? Why are women who undergo legal abortions disposable? Why are only illegal abortion deaths tragic and unacceptable? I just don't get it. Unless, of course, the outrage is just to hide the real agenda.

I wrote to Dr. Taylor asking for substantiating information about this death. He replied:

It would have been about 1953 in Blasdell & Lackawanna New York. I was 14 years old. I am unaware of any publicity. Sorry.

A good question. What is it that folks with Down Syndrome do that makes people want them wiped off the face of the earth? Why is it considered a noble goal to make sure no more kids like Jon Will are born?

Is Jon hateful, loathsome, dangerous?

Or is he just a reminder that not everybody is perfect?

Why are people like Jon such a threat that they have to be eliminated?

Tuesday, January 23, 2007

When I used to attend March for Life in the early 1990s, there were always counter-protesters lining the route. After a long absence, I returned last year and saw not a single counter-protester. And this year, I heard that there was counter-protesters but search as I could I never saw one.

On January 22, 1980, Vanessa Preston, the 22-year-old wife of a local minister, went with her husband and small son to Fairmount Clinic in Dallas. There, National Abortion Federation member Curtis Boyd performed a dilaton and extraction abortion on her. During the abortion, Vanessa went into a grand mal siezure and then into cardiac arrest.

To the credit of Boyd and the Fairmount staff, emergency procedures were immediately instituted. An ambulance was summoned, and Boyd and a nurse performed CPR and got Vanessa's heart to beat again.

Before the ambulance arrived, Vanessa again went into cardiac arrest. Again, staff at Fairmount performed CPR. Paramedics and staff stabilized Vanessa for transport to the hospital.

About 40 minutes into exploratory surgery, trying to address a retained placenta and multiple vaginal punctures, Vanessa again went into cardiac arrest. She was given a total of 24 units of blood to try to keep her circulation entact despite her massive, unstoppable blood loss. For an hour and a half, hospital staff tried in vain to resuscitate Vanessa before finally pronouncing her dead.

An autopsy revealed that she had developed AFE (amniotic fluid in the blood) and DIC (a clotting disorder) during the abortion. This is what caused her cardiac arrest. When Boyd's staff resuscitated Vanessa, they caused a small laceration of her liver. This is typical in even properly performed CPR, and is not usually life-threatening. However, because of the DIC, Vanessa's blood couldn't clot, and she bled to death from the liver laceration. Since second-trimester evacuation abortions were still new (read "experimental") at the time, Boyd and his staff didn't realize that there was a risk of DIC.

Boyd, to his credit, reported Vanessa's death to the Centers for Disease Control. He also wrote a medical journal article about her death, warning other abortionists that DIC could occur during second-trimester evacuation abortions.

We stayed at the Bassilica again. We set out stuff in the crypt, then one of the staff chased us out and told us to set up at the open area in the center of the crypts, then he found out there were 37 of us, one in a wheelchair, and let us back into the crypt. We slept with a dead bishop.I settled behind a pilar that had a metal reproduction of the head of the Virgin Mary from Michalangel's Pieta. They forgot I was there and woke me up very late in the morning! I had to rush to get my teeth brushed before we left. (We had to be out of the crypt before a 5:30 a.m. mass to be held there.)

We set off for the Verizon Center, where everybody else was attending the Youth Rally, while I hustled down the street to the Family Research Council building for the bloggers' conference.

Alas, the snow that had blown into the bus luggage area while we'd been unloading melted in the night and ruined the picture of Marla on my sign. I had to rush off to Kinko's to print a new one. Expensive! Fortunately I'd brought extra strips of Con-tac paper so I could affix it propery to the sign.

After the conference, off to the March. Everything was running late, I guess because of the weather. I found my group, but quickly got separated from them in the crunch. It was absolutely packed! I also got slowed because a lot of people wanted to read my sign.I had kept the back simple, easy to read at a distance:A lot of people were saddened, many grossed out. Though this bewildered me. How can they see all the mangled fetus pictures all the time, and hear all the gruesome descriptions of abortions, and be grossed out by anything?

I met Ann Marie, and Teresa, two of the Silent No More bloggers, along with many other Silent No More ladies. They had led the March and when they arrived at the Supreme Court they spread out along the curb. I talked to them for quite a while. We were crying. They were thanking me for remebering Marla and the other dead women and I was telling my story and how but for the grace of God, I'd have been standing beside them with my own sign. I'd been spared their anguish just because of my husband's choice of friends.

Our group was supposed to meet at the downhill end of the Rayburn building at 4:15, but by 4:10 there wasn't a sign of any of them. I borrowed a cell phone and found out that they'd just been delayed looking for each other, as we'd all been scattered in the press of the crowd. An uneventful ride home. And here I am, waiting to read of other people's experiences.

Next time I think I'll prepare a small two-sided card explaining why I'm marching for Marla, and about my calling to see to it that the dead aren't dismissed as irrelevant, so much grist for the abortion mill.

I have to go inspect the Cemetery of Choice site now for broken links. I get the feeling I'll be getting a lot of page views today.

I'll not be doing any blogging tomorrow -- or most of today -- because I'm heading to DC for Blog4Life and March for Life.

This is a bit of an adventure, because though I have a ride down, I don't have a ride home that allows me to attend the entire bloggers' conference. I'm hoping that during the morning session I find somebody who's passing through my area on their way home. If not, I miss the blogger session that comes after the March. Which would be a bummer.

I made my sign yesterday -- a much better sign than the one I had last year. This year's sign is on foam board, with full color photos on one side and black with poster paint on the other: "Laws don't kill women/ABORTIONISTS DO"

On January 21, 1961, Dr. Mandel M. Friedman contacted a Queens undertaker, asking him to arrange burial for 23-year-old Vivian Grant of New York. Friedman told the undertaker that Vivian had died of a heart ailment. The undertaker notified authorities, who determined that although Vivian had not been pregnant, Friedman had attempted to perform an abortion on her, causing her death. Friedman was charged with homicide and falsifying a death certificate.

Saturday, January 20, 2007

"Andrea" is one of the women Life Dynamics identifies on their "Blackmun Wall" as having been killed by a legal abortion. According to Life Dynamics, Andrea was 26 years old when she underwent a legal abortion at a New York City abortion facility on January 12, 1971. After her abortion, Andrea contracted an infection. Her system was unable to fight the infection, and she died on January 20, 1971, leaving behind six children.

***

The survivors of 21-year-old Linda Fondren sued after her death. Linda had an abortion performed by Mohammad Pourtabib at Pre-Birth in Chicago on New Years Day, 1974. She suffered bleeding, but Pourtabib did not provide follow-up care.

Linda was taken by ambulance to Michael Reese Hospital, in shock and needing emergency care. They would not admit her, but instead sent her to Cook County Hospital, where doctors performed an emergency hysterectomy. Linda remained hospitalized at Cook County. On January 16, doctors tried to drain fluids from Linda's chest and inadvertently punctured her spleen.

Linda died on January 20 from "hemoperitoneum with splenic rupture following hysterectomy and earlier dilatation and curettage." She left behind a small child.

***

Mary Tennyson was 20 years old when she developed septic shock from an incomplete abortion. She died on January 20, 1982.

Friday, January 19, 2007

Like the deaths of Jacqueline Smith and Barbara Lofrumento, the story of Angela Sanchez involves illegal abortion and attempts to hide the body. The difference is that Alicia Hannah's abortion clinic was operating openly and apparently legally.

On January 19, 1993, Angela Neito Sanchez, age 27, went to Clinica Feminina de la Comunidad with two of her four children: 12-year-old Maria, and 2-year-old Victor. Angela's family is adamant that Angela wasn't seeking an abortion. They said that she was excited about the pregnancy and was hoping it would be a girl so Maria would have a sister. Angela's sister Celia said that someone from the facility had called Angela, telling her to come in for a consultation about the pregnancy.

Maria and Victor waited for their mother in the lobby. A clinic staffer approached Maria and suggested that she take the car and drive Victor home. Maria protested that she was too young to drive. The children continued to wait for their mother.

At around noon, a staffer took the children to lunch. When they returned to the clinic, Angela's car was gone, and Maria was told that her mother had gone to another clinic. The children continued to wait, but when their mother failed to appear Maria finally called her uncle, Hemiberto Sanchez, who took them home with him.

By 10:00, Angela's family was frantic, and Celia took Maria to the clinic to look for Angela. When they arrived, they saw Angela's car and Maria jumped out of her aunt's pickup truck and ran to the car. There she saw her mother lying on the ground.

Maria asked two women from the clinic, who were standing nearby, what had happened to her mother, and they told her, "She's dead." Sobbing, Maria clung to and kissed her mother while the two women from the clinic told Celia that a man had shoved Angela from a car and they were picking her up. One of the women, Alicia Ruiz Hanna, who operated the facility, told Maria that her mother had just come knocking on the door, then collapsed.

Celia put her sister's body in the back of her truck and flagged down a policeman, who led her and Maria to a hospital. There, Celia was told that her sister had been dead for several hours.

After a prolonged investigation, and Hanna's jailhouse conversion to Christianity, the full story finally emerged. Hanna, who had been passing herself off as a doctor and performing abortions at the facility, had given Angela an injection to induce abortion. Angela stopped breathing, and staffers attempted to revive her but did not summon paramedics because Hanna feared that she would go to jail and lose her children if it was discovered that she was running the clinic illegally. She and the other woman had planned to put Angela's stiffening body into the trunk of her own car and abandon the vehicle at a distant location.

In December 1994, Hanna was convicted of second-degree murder for Angela's death. She was sentenced to 16 years to life.

Thirty-eight-year-old Pamela Wainwright and her husband had two children living at home, one of whom had Down Syndrome.

Pamela was admitted to Shallowford Community Hospital in Dunwoody, Georgia on January 15, 1987, for an abortion and tubal ligation. Pamela was 11 weeks pregnant.

Pamela was taken to the operating room for her surgery the next day. The abortion and tubal ligation were to be performed by Dr. Wendell Phillips.

Phillips placed a needle into Pamela's abdomen to pump in carbon dioxide. He did not ensure proper placement of the needle. Instead of pumping carbon dioxide into her abdomen, he pumped it into her bloodstream.

Pamela died almost immediately from cardiac arrest, due to vapor lock in her heart.

Former abortion entrepreneur Carol Everett, in Blood Money, tells of how the abortionist in one of her clinics sent a woman home to bleed to death over a pitcher of margaritas.

Carol opens her book with the story of the woman she calls "Sheryl Mason." At first believed to be 18 weeks pregnant, Sheryl turned out to be twenty weeks pregnant, according to the abortionist's estimate on examining her. The clinic held the $375 she'd already paid and gave her until that Friday to come up with another $125.

It was already after 7 p.m. when Sheryl arrived with the extra cash, Carol said. She knew Sheryl would be in recovery for a long time because of her advanced state of pregnancy, so she moved her to the head of the queue to speed up the process.

After Sheryl's abortion was completed, Carol met the abortionist, Harvey Johnson, in the supply room to verify that all fetal parts were accounted for. As the fetus was verified complete, and Harvey ran the remains down the garbage disposal, they discussed their plans for the evening. Carol had a date; Harvey was going to have margaritas with his girlfriend, Carol recalled. Carol proceeded to her office to tend to administrative work. Harvey resumed the evening's abortions.

Later that evening, Harvey called Carol to the recovery room; Sheryl was bleeding heavily. None of the staff had ever seen that much blood. They were all scared, but did their best to calm the patient and get on top of the situation. An aide massaged the patient's uterus to encourage it to contract and reduce the bleeding:

Harvey and I stepped outside the recovery room to talk. .... He looked at his watch. "I'm leaving to meet Fredi at Ninfa's," he said. "I'll call back, and I have my beeper on if you need me. Sheryl will be fine. Just be sure to keep massaging her uterus until the bleeding stops. When her vital signs are stable, dismiss her. I'll see you in the morning."

The staff cleaned Sheryl up as best they could, and brought her boyfriend back to keep her company. Carol finished up her administrative work, checked on Sheryl, and called her boyfriend to cancel their date.

The woman's blood pressure fell. Carol paged Harvey, but when he called back, the answering service rather than the clinic answered the phone. Harvey assumed that the problem had corrected itself -- whatever the problem had been. And Carol sat by Sheryl and the boyfriend, waiting to hear from Harvey.

Sheryl wanted to leave, to go home and be in her own bed. This is a sign of a patient going into shock. Carol was uneasy, but decided to let Sheryl go home at about 11:00, admonishing her to call if there was any trouble. So it was Carol, an administrator, who ended up making what should have been a medical decision made by a physician -- a physician who had left the hemorrhaging patient in the care of untrained staff because the margaritas were waiting.

Carol was awakened at 6:00 the next morning by a phone call from Harvey:

Her boyfriend called me this morning at about three and told me Sheryl was cramping heavily. I told him to put her in a tub of hot water. He called back a little later to say she was unconscious. I told him to get her to [the hospital] at once, and I would meet them there. When she arrived, I started intravenous fluids and a blood transfusion... but she's gone.

Stunned, Carol followed Harvey's instructions to just go about the day's business -- but to pull Sheryl's chart and keep it in her office.

They went about their normal routine at the clinic, but Carol's thoughts were elsewhere. At first those thoughts were of the woman's children, left orphaned. But then came near panic over what this death would mean for Carol Everett. Would there be bad publicity? Would the clinic end up closed? Could they recover from this blow?

That night, Carol discussed the situation with Harvey again. He told her that since the boyfriend didn't want the woman's family to know about the abortion, he'd spoken to them and told them that he'd been treating Sheryl for genecolocical problems. They asked him flat out if she'd had an abortion, and he told her no, Carol said.

Harvey had done damage control, Carol said. Nobody at the hospital would say anything to anybody about the death; Harvey's private practice and the clinic would be fine as long as they could keep the story from getting any publicity.

And, Carol said, Harvey and his girlfriend carefully edited the patient chart before providing it to the medical examiner's office.

The autopsy found that Sheryl had died of hemorrhaging from a cervical tear. At this news, Carol said, "I went numb":

We could have saved Sheryl's life! my mind screamed. We only needed to have sutured her cervix. We had everything we needed in the clinic to save Sheryl's life, with one exception -- a doctor willing to take the time to re-examine his patient to determine the cause of the bleeding. But he had a date, and the margaritas were waiting.

Prolifers tend to believe Carol's story. Scoffers dismiss it. But there's another course besides uncritical acceptance and contemptuous dismissal: Looking into the story and seeing if it's true.

At Life Dynamics, we knew we couldn't just use the story out of Carol's book when we did our research for Lime 5. We needed a "secular" source -- something more than a prolifer claiming that something had happened. So, as we did with all prolifer reports of deaths, we started searching for a public record document to verify Carol's story.

We knew that Carol's abortion facilities were in Dallas. Elsewhere in Blood Money, Carol indicated that as of January of 1982, she was still proud of her clinics, which had recently expanded to doing later abortions. Elsewhere she said that to celebrate the boost in business that accompanied the expansion into later abortions, she bought a new car on March 2, 1982. The next date we can get a clue from is Harvey's marriage, which takes place in February of the following year. The woman Carol called Sheryl must have taken place in 1982, then.

We stared searching all public record sources in the Dallas metroplex area for an abortion death in 1982. And we found it:

Autopsy Report Case No. 0120-82-0057 on 34-year-old Shary Graham indicates that she was pronounced dead January 16, 1982, at an emergency room in Dallas. She had a 3cm tear in her cervix. "It is our opinion that Shary... died as a result of a laceration of the uterine cervix. By history, she had undergone a termination of pregnancy procedure the day prior to the death. Evidence of bleeding included large amounts of blood on three cloth robes that accompanied the body, and hemorrhage beneath the outer covering of the uterus."

The address of the facility where Shary had her abortion was the address of one of Carol's clinics.

Of course, no public record document is going to verify the story of the pitcher of margaritas. But when we consider what excuses other abortionists had for leaving patients with no medical supervision, the pitcher of margaritas is credible:

John Biskind left Lou Ann Herron without medical supervision so that he could keep an appointment with a tailor.

No reason was given for Abram Zelikman's decision to leave the hemorrhaging Eurice Agbagaa in the care of a receptionist.

Tommy Tucker seems to have left Angela Hall with no doctor to care for her because he'd had a fight with the nurse about whether or not to call an ambulance.

Nareshkumar Gandalal was reprimanded by the Oklahoma medical board for leaving a patient "in post-operative condition in the treatment room under anesthesia" on June 10, 1989, so that he could take a friend to the airport. (Medical Board Case No. 87-7-514)

Carol places the responsibility for the death of the woman she calls Sheryl not only on abortionist Harvey Johnson's shoulders, but squarely on her own. Carol herself began laying the groundwork for what would happen to "Sheryl" with a business decision to do later abortions because of their higher profit margin.

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